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Dan Stanley and Fluffy Thoughts

Featured Illustrator

Dan Stanley is a London-based illustrator and designer who will soon be launching his new range of greeting cards, Fluffy Thoughts. He graduated from the London Metropolitan University in 2007 and began setting up Fluffy Thoughts. His fanciful daydreams inspire his designs that are filled with mischievous animals and fuzzy creatures! They mix together a childlike innocence with colourful wit, drawing you deeper into the mysterious world of his characters. Dan has plans to develop his character range further to include soft toys, vinyl toys, books and clothing – he invites you now to step into his shiny, cloud-filled universe.

Tell me more about Fluffy Thoughts?

Fluffy Thoughts is my range of greeting cards that I designed and are soon to be launched! My initial design ideas were based around a set of creature characters that I put together while completing an Art Foundation course. The range will be available through my online shop and I am currently working towards having them stocked in shops too.

You design many surreal, fun characters. What are the biggest influences on your designs?

I love Japanese design and animation. I’m a huge fan of anything with cute or crazy characters! So I decided to create my own too and had lots of fun doing so! I had designed and produced a number of soft toy monsters and it’s great to see more of my characters come to life through Fluffy Thoughts. I love illustrators such as Alex Pardee, Bubi Au Yeung, and also illustrated brands such as Ugly Dolls and Tokidoki.

What are your thoughts on our homegrown artists at the moment?

There is a growing interest in hand drawn art and illustration, rather than computer generated art, which is fantastic. It’s shifting away from the accurate images created on computers and has moved onto more irregular and rough styles which I feel gives the artwork more of a personal identity. There is a great interest in Vinyl toys at the moment which has increased the popularity of characters within a larger age group. This is great news, I’ve always been a huge fan of character based designs which spurred me onto design my creatures. I’m a big follower of illustrated brands such as TADO, NOODOLL and LAZY OAF who are all based in London too.

What are your other plans for the future?

Greeting cards are only the beginning. I hope to expand on Fluffy Thoughts with a clothing range and various other products. I would love to expand on some of my characters stories with illustrated books also!